


Infallible

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/F, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 14:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7760821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has little interest in the politic of it. Overwatch, a propaganda machine headed by the poster boy Jack Morrison and prolific healer Angela Ziegler. A collection of smiling heroes that, as far as she can tell, Blackwatch lead Reaper seems to hold in contempt and suspicion.</p><p>"Corruption runs deep." He says.</p><p>"We have all reaped what they've sown, it is time to return the favor."</p><p>And, "The reckoning is coming."</p><hr/><p>Alternate reality. After the war, Overwatch loses its purpose and Blackwatch is its ugly underbelly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infallible

**Author's Note:**

> Symptoms of initial onset may include nausea, shortness of breath, pain in the head, jaw, arms or chest, numbness in fingers, often of a novel but imprecise sensation which builds with irregular heart beat.

Amélie was a good girl. She never caused any trouble, never stepped out of line, she was the ideal girlfriend, ideal wife — elegant and with a smile that was just on the human side of perfection. It was only natural that Gérard Lacroix — a man going somewhere in his career, the kind of agent others called a true asset, a hero in the making — would marry her. It wasn't a loveless marriage, but the kind of relationship drawn together by the gravity of two people who were _obviously_ suited for each other.

As a young girl, Amélie enjoyed sanctuary hunting trips with her father. The carefully groomed grass, fat animals raised for nothing but slaughter and the distinct lack of mud, bugs and humidity. A controlled environment where they could boast about their kills without infringing on true 'beauty of the natural world.' Amélie, also, supported animal rights, within reason. She favored the No. 13-Weatherby Mark MMXI. Finished in a retro-mahogany stain, the rifle had a modificed scope and lightened body, perfect for leisure hunting.

When she became Mme Lacroix she gave up hunting in favor of hobbies more suited for a woman, not a little girl. Gérard had always approved of her hobbies, however, and on their Honeymoons they took secret trips to hunting sanctuaries or even thrilling travels to unknown places. He was a good husband. She was a good wife.

They were, perhaps, too good for Overwatch. During the war Overwatch had been nothing but heroics. Breaking the rules when they needed to be broken, rushing in when no one else would. Overwatch was the unexpected hammer to bend the metal back into shape.

And then, after the war, Overwatch was a relic. But also a symbol. If Overwatch endorsed an idea it must be good for public safety. If Overwatch endorsed a candidate, they must be for the protection of the people. 

The new Overwatch became complicit.

It was a trend that many couldn't stand for, but loyalty died hard. Gérard spearheaded the first investigation into their own closets. His wife, Amélie, smiled behind her hand at press conferences and played her part. They promised each other, together, they would never stray from their ideas. To death do they part.

The car crash that killed Gérard must have just been a fluke. The hover mechanism glitched, the rear pads stopped working and the car careened off a cliff into the ocean. He was pronounced dead on arrival. Amélie got off lightly in comparison, they said. Her back was broken in three places, her heart stopped for fifteen minutes and she would probably never wake again, but she was alive.

While the world mourned yet another hero, the underbelly of Overwatch dragged itself over the coals and woke to something terrible.

* * *

The bed isn't comfortable, her shoulders are stiff and when she opens her eyes everything seems dull except the shapes of people around her. There's a man shrouded in black and it's almost as if she can see his veins, red laced with black through his body, and another next to him, a broad rimmed hat tipped over his face but she can see the warmth that's his heart.

"Back with us, are you." His voice is gruff, the red veining shifts around in his body as he speaks. She is struck with the feeling that he hasn't got a heart at all.

"Back? From where have I returned?" She asks. It is then, too, that she realizes everything about herself is missing.

"Told you Ziegler was a quack." The other man says in a drawl, but his heartbeat briefly increases. She focuses on him, feeling her own breath and heartbeat seeming so slow in comparison.

"Hm?" She interjects, swings her legs up and over the edge of the bed, sitting up in one fluid motion.

"She's good at raising monsters from the dead."

"That what we need? More monsters? Workin' out real well for you."

The tension isn't unbearable by any means. She feels above it all, but interjects regardless, "Pardon me, but if either of you would care to explain."

The two exchange looks. She imagines a bullethole between each of their eyes, perfect and round.

"Welcome to Blackwatch, Widowmaker." 

She learns quickly that the first man is Reaper, that the second is McCree, that she now sees thermal patterns, hearts and the most efficient ways to kill people. A gift, but not the same sights that others see. In honesty, she can't recall any of their faces, but they all in the end will die the same, so she can't say she minds much.

Reaper doesn't explain and McCree is just as elusive. She pieces it together from what she overhears, from the database that is kept on a single terminal in a dark room and from passing conversations with any other member of Blackwatch. There were six of them: Reaper, McCree, Junkrat, Roadhog, Genji and of course, herself.

We're all freaks here, Junkrat had welcomed her without pointing out her blue skin. Roadhog welcomed her as well with a gutteral laugh and oddly polite handshake.

"The other side of Overwatch," Genji at least, explains, "The side born from truth." Unlike Reaper who is a constant tangle of shifting red lines, Genji's are orderly and thrum with a constant machinelike efficiency. She finds that soothing, in a way. Despite his orderly internal workings, however, there are times when his voice holds an edge and some long buried anger surfaces.

She debates offering him her help — eye for an eye, bite for bite, a dagger in the heart of what ails him. He is the closest she has to a confidant, not that she has much to confess. And, he is far easier to tolerate than McCree who seems to have something he wants to say, half the time when he sees her.

She has little interest in the politic of it. Overwatch, a propaganda machine headed by the poster boy Jack Morrison and prolific healer Angela Ziegler. A collection of smiling heroes that, as far as she can tell, Blackwatch lead Reaper seems to hold in contempt and suspicion.

"Corruption runs deep." He says.

"We have all reaped what they've sown, it is time to return the favor."

And, "The reckoning is coming."

* * *

The first mission she takes on as a newly minted agent of Blackwatch is in Russia. The frozen landscape only makes every target show like a red hot prick against the whiteness. For the first time since she woke, Widowmaker is overcome with a warm feeling that travels from her heart down her spine to his fingertips. If she chooses, people will live and if she chooses she can end their life in a moment.

This is what it means to feel alive.

* * *

Angela Zielger's parents were both philanthropists. From an early age she was taught the value of giving, that true redemption and satisfactionc ame from helping others. They told her that she should turn her brilliance — and she was undoubtedly a genius, she knew it — towards the greater good.

When both her parents were killed while providing disaster relief during the war, Angela threw herself into their wishes. For others, for the better, peace and healing. But during her own first foray into military medicine she found herself in the middle of a poorly pitched tent — slanted sideways from the rain and mud — with only outdated supplies.

 _Save me._ The demand of the dying and of the dead because when she slept she catalogued every face of every soldier she couldn't tend to and the ones who died while she was holding their hands. She cried on the third day, standing at the corner of the tend her gown and hands covered in blood and bits off flesh because a series of bombs had ripped through an entire caravan of supply trucks.

The drivers hadn't even be soldiers.

"Go home, Angela. You're too young for this." The head doctor had said, kindly. "There will always be more wars and more people in need. Come back when you're older."

She tied her hair back and didn't wipe the tear tracks from her cheeks. "Thank you for the concern, but my other always said if we never face what gives us sorrow we can never truly change anything."

An hour later a soldier who's right leg was only held on by a strand of flesh and cracked bone elbowed her in the eye as she held him down while the surgeon tried to stop the sever the limb. He had screamed and cried and the only thing she could do is tell him, "I'm here with you."

The following day the medical tent was torn apart by a gatling gun. She had never felt so hopeless in her life — even when her parents had failed to return home day after day. She could only feel a little guilty, for that.

We can do better, Angela believed. I can do better.

The first Valkyrie suit lacked mobility. It was heavy, but designed to be able to absorb the damage from bullets and bombs. She had designed it to keep the medic safe because if the medic died, who would save the soldiers? Large wings doubled as a shield, curling up and around the cockpit.

It was a spectacular failure. She had just watched the people she wanted to save die while she escaped the hazards. There were always other wars, other people in need of help. Even after 'The War' was won skirmishes broke out on the borders, those who had been defeated clung to one last hope they could recover what they had lost.

Desperation.

Her final model of the Valkyrie suit had no defenses. It was light, swift and delivered healing quickly. The first time she wore it she felt as though she was flying. There was no one she couldn't save. Everyone who was injured she could get to. She saved lives. She decided who lived and who died and she chose: This time, everyone lives.

* * *

Resurrection, however, was a little more finicky.

The first soldier she resurrected only came back in body. The heart beat, the blood flowed — out through the bullet holes in the chest — and the lungs inhaled, exhaled, moved the diaphragm. But the eyes were still glassy, clouded and for the five minutes it was just a living corpse.

The second came back screaming before dying again, immediately.

The third, thanked her and then bled out and died in her arms again.

She decided who lived and who died. This time, she would get it right.

Then, he had been a dear friend, a war hero, the kind of dependable man who she would have trusted with the lives of the soldiers she watched over. But as his face reformed, the black soot from the explosion flaking off of his burned skin and showing his expression beneath she saw something she never wanted to see again.

"You did this." He said, gripped her shoulders, fingertips crumbling against her Valkyrie suit. The rolling growl didn't come from his stomach or his throat but the red and black burning that sat in his chest cavity.

But, he didn't slip back into death. She counted that as success.


End file.
